Career Development for the Over 60s

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

The new format of Discuss HR is well and truly up and running and you should be getting the gist of things.  Following on from her previous post “Stress and the HR Professional” we welcome back Wendy Mason who looks at how the over 60s can still develop their careers. (Ed Scrivener)

Career Development for the Over 60s

First I have to admit to a personal interest here; I am well over sixty.  Second, I have to make a confession; I still don’t really know what I want to do when I grow up.

David Willetts, the higher education minister, has spoken recently about encouraging older people take up degree courses. Quite a lot of over 60s take up degree courses already of course – in 2011/12, nearly 2,000 started a first degree.  Most of them were with the Open University with “The Arts Past and Present” being the most popular course, apparently.

               

But a history of art course is not what Mr Willets (who was known as “Two Brains” to my generation of Civil Servants) has in mind. No, what dear old David wants us to do is to “train”, so that we can cope with the pressures we will face as we work “well into our sixties”.  His comments follow a government report which has found that the country’s future economic success will depend on the skills and contributions of older workers. One in four people will be older than 65 by 2033.

So we are asked to abandon our studies in art, history, classical studies, English, philosophy, music and religious studies etc and concentrate instead on the skills that will be required at work in 2020. 

Dare I say it, I think the very intelligent Mr Willetts is starting in the wrong place. Based on my own experience, it isn’t what happens after 60 that matters so much as what happens in the years up to 60. 

I’ve had an extremely lucky career. Many moons ago, I joined a sector that was by its very nature conservative; the Civil Service. But it was also, at that time, one of the most enlightened with regard to equality of opportunity.  Let us not be naïve here.  I am not claiming that the organization I joined, the massive Department of Health and Social Security, did not reflect the prejudices of the age.  But the Civil Service was, and remains, committed to open competition. Once in, there was very little I could not compete for, after a period of time. I was not always on completely equal terms. but not usually that far off either.

So, being the gritty, determined “Midlander” that I am, I tried to talk my way into the famous “fast stream” of the Civil Service.  Note, that I had a nursing qualification rather than the conventional degree.  I was in the Fast Stream at about the same time as David, although there was a significant age gap between us. I think I came as something of a challenge to some of my peers but it shows you what could be done, even then.

Towards the end of my Civil Service career, the climate of equality and opportunity definitely outshone anything I’ve encountered since I left.  And that includes how they treated people of a certain age. Even in my late fifties, I still felt encouraged to develop, train and aspire. I received my last promotion, changed roles and changed departments at the age of 57 and it wasn’t considered odd.

So when I chose to leave at 60 – note the words “chose to leave” – it was quite natural to think in terms of what next and a new career. No, I did not commit to three or four years in University but I did do some further training and set off with confidence in to work in the private sector.

I’m pretty sure I would not have done so, without the encouragement I had had from my employer in the years up to 60.  They had not excluded me, made me feel too old or shown they felt I was unworthy their investment. My knowledge, experience and willingness to learn were respected and my personal development was encouraged.  All that meant that at 60 plus, I continued to see work-related learning as still relevant to me.

Looking round now I believe I was very, very lucky. I wish more people in the years up to 60 had their confidence boosted in the same way that I did.  Perhaps then they would be much more willing to take up the challenge that David Willetts has set them.

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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